The exhibition opened Friday evening with plenty of food and refreshments for the many attendees who came to see the work of 12 artists from Hope and surrounding communities. Also on display were submissions from child artists whose work indicated their placement in SWAAC’s annual contest for that age group.
Among my own favorites were Brooke Beck’s “First Bloom” with its resplendent watercolors brightening and bursting through inked, folk-artsy flowers; her spouse Rusty’s nearly living fantasy-fiction wizard, scowling as if to say, “Now that you called me here, don’t waste my time;” Ruby Streeter’s acrylic “Lady of the Glen,” poised but with a preoccupied expression, Darla Neely’s bespectacled frog of “Too Many Flies,” looking like an overwhelmed Oliver Platt and Rachel Pendergraft’s “Odyssey,” which evokes the winding and unwinding through sea and narrative that Homer’s man of many turns must take before his homecoming.
But I was also quite taken by Trevor Moses digital pen and ink piece “Petarious,” in which the artist takes on the considerable challenge of depicting a male figure in linen cloth with a sharp realism; Carla Bruce’s stark portrayal of life’s force in a parched place in “Dessert Remains; Mittie Harris’ evocation of a verdant planet put through difficulties in her “Second Earth;” and Tyler Hicks dark exploration of a police officer’s conscience in his acrylic on canvas, “Weight of the Badge.”
None of this is to forget Shelly Allen’s delightful capture of the expression of a boychild struggling with some bad news, her canvas entitled “Baby Hulk and the Word ‘No;’” Krystin Hick’s “Night to Day,” which in a vivid, acrylic cartoon world places a little girl in a difficult predicament of in-between and Dianne Gentry’s capturing of a supervisory visage on a South American camelid in “Llama Mama #1.”
Among the younger artists’ displayed items, you will see HAPS student Hailey Basilio’s “Sweet Dreams,” an intricate crayon work depicting the ideal set of birthday presents and Yerger Middle Student Ayla Carvlin’s canvas of a purple Octopus as well as many other worthy entrants.
The gallery was open Friday evening and Monday afternoon, but as of this upload you have one more day to see what local artists have been working on, Thursday May 29th from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Last four photos from Friday's opening event by Gracie Smittle.
